Callison: Aberdeen sculptor's work to stand in U.S. Capitol

Mar. 22, 2014

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When Aberdeen’s Benjamin Victor began his research into Norman Borlaug, a crop researcher credited with saving millions of lives, one quote stopped him.

“When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together. They sound like the pine needles in a forest. It is a sweet, whispering music that once you hear, you never forget,” Borlaug had told a biographer. With those words pulsing from heart and soul to fingertips, and inspired by a photograph, Victor envisioned the plant scientist in a field of wheat, with a notebook in his hands and his hat tilted back.

That image was chosen by an Iowa delegation as the finalist in a competition for a Borlaug statue to display in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. The unveiling will be Tuesday.

The Borlaug statue replaces one of U.S. Sen. James Harlan, which has stood in the Capitol since 1910. It will be relocated to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, where Harlan served as Iowa Wesleyan College’s president.

On Tuesday, Victor joins a singular category. He will be the only living sculptor to have two pieces in the National Statuary Hall Collection. His sculpture of Sarah Winnemucca, a 19th century Native American interpreter and writer, was placed there in 2005 by Nevada.

Nine years ago, Victor became the youngest sculptor to have a statue in Statuary Hall. With the installation of the Borlaug sculpture, 35-year-old Victor becomes the second-youngest sculptor with a work there.

Someone else who has two pieces in Statuary Hall is Gutzon Borglum, creator of Mount Rushmore, Victor points out.

“When I did Sarah Winnemucca, I thought this would be a kind of once-in-a-lifetime experience, I was so young then,” says Victor, whose first national commission came when he was a student at Northern State University. “Now, I’m just floored I get to do this again.”

A California native, after high school, Victor traveled with friends to Ellendale, N.D., to attend Trinity Bible College and play basketball. It was when he transferred to NSU he first tried sculpting. NSU requires art majors to take a sculpture class, and after that first semester, Victor took every class offered. Before then, he had focused on painting and drawing.

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“When I picked up clay, it really worked for me and I enjoyed it,” Victor says. “It was like I didn’t have to think about the technical aspects.”

Victor, who calls Aberdeen home, has pieces around South Dakota. He has a plaque at the entrance to Falls Park, and sculptures at Sanford Heart Hospital, the Make-a-Wish office and “Daughters of Peace” at City Hall here.

Victor’s work appears in large and small pieces on the NSU campus, where he is artist in residence, President Jim Smith says. The studio now is a destination for visitors, he says.

“He’s exceptionally talented and down to earth,” Smith says. “He’s competing against some of the best, and to have two pieces (in Statuary Hall) and to be Ben’s age, it takes your breath away.”

The competition for Borlaug’s statue drew international entries. It was reduced from 80 applicants down to eight who were interviewed, then four who presented a scale model of their idea.

“I was fortunate enough to get to do it,” Victor says. “I’d put in so much research and work, it was hard to let go. Probably every finalist feels that way. I guess it’s not a unique thing, but I sure was happy when I got the news.”

Borlaug’s statue stands 7 feet, 2 inches on a 3-foot pedestal. It was cast in bronze in Lander, Wyo., and in Berkeley, Calif.

Victor created a clay model, which had to be cut into pieces before the casting. It still is difficult to dissect his work, Victor says, although he’s gotten to where he can do it himself.

He is in Washington now, overseeing the statue’s placement before Tuesday’s unveiling ceremony. Tuesday is the centennial of Borlaug’s birth in northeast Iowa, and family members will attend. It also is National Agriculture Day.

Also present will be leaders from both political parties, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and former Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, who leads the World Food Prize Foundation. Victor will be given a minute to speak at the following reception.

Victor has many people to thank, he says. Foremost is Borlaug, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work in bringing superior wheat strains and production methods to Mexico, Pakistan and India. Borlaug’s contributions greatly averted starvation in those countries.